TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/031692/0316220.000

Text File | 1992-10-19 | 5.5 KB | 117 lines

                                                                                PRESS, Page 48

"Don't Quote Me, But . . ."


A U.S. Senator cries foul to sexual-misconduct charges, but the
accusers are not the usual anonymous sources

By WILLIAM A. HENRY III -- Reported by David S. Jackson/Seattle


    When Senator Brock Adams of Washington quit his bid for
re-election last week, hours after the Seattle Times charged him
with sexual misconduct toward eight unnamed female employees or
political associates, the liberal Democrat said he had been
destroyed by "hypothetical comments by hypothetical people." For
most Americans, who read only excerpts or summaries in their
local dailies, the implication was strong that Adams had been
victimized by flimsy reporting of unsubstantiated -- even
fabricated -- claims from political enemies. The enduring image
was of a haggard Adams, flanked by his supportive wife and
daughter, denouncing his accusers as too cowardly to be named
and the allegations against him as too vague to refute.

    In decrying the use of anonymous sources, Adams appealed
to fair play and to a growing opinion, even among journalists,
that reporters place far too much faith in people unwilling to
back up what they say. Often, unnamed sources seek to advance
some personal agenda. Sometimes they tell lies and lend extra
credence to falsehood by peddling it as top-secret truth. While
Adams' abrupt withdrawal, at the end of a weekend during which
he had raised $130,000 for his campaign, seemed like a tacit
admission of guilt, he insisted that in his case the
allegations -- which range from uninvited fondling of women to
drugging their drinks, undressing them and purportedly raping
one -- had been "created out of whole cloth." His reaction on
reading the stories: "That's not me." He said he quit the race
because he could not fight back without confronting his
accusers.

    For anyone who actually read them, however, the Seattle
Times stories stood out as textbook examples of meticulous,
convincing journalism -- and of sourcing that is not really
anonymous. The paper found not just one or two accusers but many
more. While none were ready to be named, eight among them
pledged willingness to back up their claims in court if Adams
sued the paper. Moreover, despite his insistence that he could
not recognize the women, their published vignettes abound in
evocative detail.

    Nearly all the accusers are active Democrats; none had an
obvious political motive to hurt Adams. Nor does the Times,
which has abandoned its former Republican identity, and endorsed
Michael Dukakis for President in 1988. Most compelling, the
accusers had to be sought and coaxed. In one case, when a
reporter reached a reluctant victim, her first words were, ``For
three years, I've told myself that when this phone call came,
I would hang up." (She didn't.) Far from being used by Adams'
enemies, the paper itself initiated the probe. Says executive
editor Michael Fancher: "Obviously, we would have preferred to
run a story naming names. But the choice we faced was either
silence or this story. And we decided that it was too important,
and we were too sure of the truth, to be silent."

    The genesis of the crusade was, ironically, a misconduct
investigation that had exonerated Adams. In 1987 a House
committee aide named Kari Tupper, a daughter of longtime friends
of Adams', told police he had drugged and molested her at his
Washington, D.C., home. A year and a half later, after the U.S.
Attorney's office found insufficient supporting evidence and
declined to prosecute, she went public. The Times then received
anonymous calls from two women asserting that Adams had done
similar things to them.

    In many newsrooms, the matter would have ended there. But
a few Times staff members, notably city editor David Boardman,
were haunted by the idea that a U.S. Senator renowned for his
liberal posture on women's issues might be abusive in his
personal life. Several times, the editors revived the story,
only to set it aside because no accuser was willing to be named.

    In November of last year, a chance conversation between
Fancher and reporters about the moral leadership role of a
newspaper prompted him to authorize one last try. Three veteran
reporters -- Pulitzer prizewinner Eric Nalder, 46, and Susan
Gilmore and Eric Pryne, both 41 -- were told to reexamine their
leads. To break the logjam, editors decided that signed
statements from the accusers would serve as a compromise between
the identification the paper wanted and the anonymity the
accusers sought. A week before the story went to press, Fancher
says, "we looked at what we had and said, `We've got it.' "

    While Adams could not face his accusers, he was repeatedly
offered the chance to answer their accusations. Three requests
for interviews were deflected. "I'm not going to grant any
interviews on that," Adams said. Meanwhile, despite his
assertion that he did not know who his accusers were, some of
Adams' staff members apparently had a good idea. In the final
days before publication, they contacted several of the women who
were sources, belatedly urging their silence.

    On the evening before the story appeared, the reporting
team and their spouses met for a wrap-up dinner. It suddenly
struck them that each couple included the parent of a daughter.
Says reporter Pryne: "That was a factor for every one of us."
It was another reason that, to them, the victims of alleged
sexual harassment were not "hypothetical" at all.